You Belong to Me
by chef diamond heart
Summary: La Push is a village of many secrets - some are more closely guarded than others... An inside look at the other Twilight love triangle - from Leah's POV.


All things Twilight are the sole property of the divine Stephenie Meyers. This fan fic is purely for entertainment with no other gain. No copyright infringement is intended. Think of it as an _homage_….

** You Belong to Me**

Pachelbel's Canon, the remix.

It was a melody that I had always loved, but the selection on the 'Personally Yours Wedding Music' CD was arranged to go on and on and on…. To accommodate last minute wedding flurries and nervous grooms, I guessed.

I turned to survey the room; everything was just about ready, on this worst possible day of my life. The person I loved more than any other, more than my own existence, was marrying someone else.

"How do I look, Leah?" Emily asked, smiling shyly.

Blinking back the tears that threatened, I assured her, "You look… ravishing, Em. Sam will probably keel over when he sees you."

I gave her my best smile. I had had lots of practice at covering my feelings over the last year and a half: I was damned if I would take any more pity from anyone over the turn my life had taken.

People thought of me as a sour, hateful bitch who couldn't get over losing a man – at least they could think I was a _brave_ hateful bitch. They didn't need to know more than that. No one could help me with such a loss, a loss that took the very heart out of me.

It was time. We shuffled into order: Kim and Rachel, who were the other brides' maids, then me, and then the two little cousins who were the flower girls. Emily, of course, came last.

I gave them the count we had practiced to parade down the aisle of the church. I couldn't shake the feeling that we should be walking to a funeral dirge rather than the traditional 'Lohengrin'.

Maid of Honor at my best friend's wedding, to bear witness as she wed the man I had been engaged to. It sounded like the blurb of a movie, a light romantic comedy. One where the loser friend finally, comically, finds the man of her dreams after witty repartée and hilarious misunderstandings.

Life isn't like the movies.

My brother Seth was an usher; he gave me a sympathetic look as I passed him, a sweetly pensive expression on my face. It was an expression I had practiced until my face muscles ached from fatigue. Seth knew better than any one what I was going through today; I didn't know how I came to get such an amazing sib. I had never told him my truth, but I thought he knew anyway.

The happy couple met at the altar and it was all I could do to keep from crying out as Sam solemnly took her hand. In my mind I was screaming, "Emily, Emily, how can you do this? Not him, please not him. You belong to _me_!"

Like a girl-shaped rock formation, I stood frozen as I watched and listened to the age-old words spoken by the minister and the responses of two lovers who were killing me with their adoration for each other.

My mind went back to an afternoon one year, five months and four days ago, an afternoon that became the pivot of my life. For me, everything dated B.E. (Before Emily) and A.E. (After Emily).

My whole life had been spent on the reservation in our isolated corner of the world. A place where I knew everyone and everyone knew me. A place where nothing much ever changed and we all behaved as was expected of us. A trip to Seattle for whatever purpose was the most exotic and exciting happening any of us knew. That was all there was.

Emily and I were cousins and best friends, but we called ourselves sisters. We were closer than many of the sisters I was acquainted with. We each knew all the other's secrets.

Nearly as close as Emily was Sam. We had had an 'understanding' for as long as I could remember. When I finished my junior year of high school Sam gave me a ring. A real one. Not a so-called friendship ring, but a sparkling diamond that made me the envy of every girl in my class. This was how things were done on the rez.

Sam was a fine young man, everybody said so, and I knew it was true. He was everything a girl could want, and he wanted _me_.

Sex with Sam was… good. I wanted it, was eager for it, I was ready to be a woman. It was fitting. And yet….

For quite some time I had been conscious of a difference in my awareness of Emily. I found myself looking at the way the light gleamed on her crow black hair. As if for the first time, I saw the curve of her cheekbones and the sway of her hips as she walked. My heart beat a little harder when I heard her car pull up to the house. When she borrowed a sweater of mine, I found myself pressing it to my face later to capture her scent in the fibers.

It was bewildering, appalling, and not a little frightening. I had heard of things like two women who… but I had never known anyone who was like that. It was something that was snickered over and alluded to in various more-or-less vulgar terms. I wasn't even quite certain what people 'like that' _did._

I made up my mind to keep silent about my feelings; surely Emily would be just as uneasy about them as I was, if not worse. Better to cry to myself in secret over the pain and frustration I felt than to have her recoil in disgust.

There was Sam to be thought of, anyway. I had made promises and I intended to keep them. The Quileute put a lot of value on steadfastness. I had had many convincing discussions with myself on these matters.

It was raining, big surprise, that afternoon: the one that started the rift in my universe. Emily was at my house. Mom and Dad and Seth were at some tribal activity in Hoquiam for the day. Just what, I hadn't bothered to register; it wasn't my kind of thing.

As we had so many afternoons in our lives, we did homework, we listened to music, and we talked. My awareness of Emily was almost suffocating me. I wondered how she could possibly not be aware of the magnetic pull I could feel between us.

I lounged on the bed, Em sat on the floor, leaning her back against the mattress. As is typical with teenaged girls, the topic turned to love. My heart twisted miserably as I tried to draw Emily out about which of the reservation boys she fancied, but she claimed not to have a preference.

"How are things with Sam these days?" she asked. "Is he still being weird?"

"Yeah," I sighed, "I just can't figure him out. There was that time he just disappeared for _ten days_ with no explanation and now…. He's always 'busy' or dead on his feet."

"Do you think it's another girl?" my friend asked, anxious for me.

"N-no-o-o," I sighed, uncertainly. "He's hanging out a lot with that Paul Roche, you know, the one he always said was such a prick. I can't figure it out. And the two of them are awfully tight with the elders, which is even stranger, if you ask me. Dad's all for him, though, can't say enough good things about him. I just wish I knew…."

"It'll work out, I know." Emily murmured in a comforting tone. "Sam really loves you. He'll tell you what's going on when he's ready."

"I suppose," I muttered. I really didn't want to talk about Sam.

I took a deep breath and sat up on the bed, grabbing my hairbrush. Positioning myself so that Emily was between my legs, I began to brush her beautiful hair, then to weave it into an elaborate French braid.

Then I gently began to massage her neck. She hummed and wriggled into a more comfortable position.

My heart was pounding so hard I thought I might choke, as I leaned my face down and softly touched my lips to her temple, then to the corner of her eye. She tensed and started as I drifted my mouth down the slope of her cheek to the little hollow behind her jaw.

"Leah, what are you-" she turned her head to look at me in amazement. Her lips were so close to mine that I couldn't stop myself: I kissed her full on the mouth. At her gasp I stopped and looked into her wide, startled brown eyes. But she didn't pull away.

I slid down to the floor beside her and took her face in my hands. "Leah," she began again.

"Shhhh," I whispered, and brought my mouth to hers again, catching her lower lip between mine, then the upper one. I pressed little kisses on her chin and jaw, and then returned to her lips, slipping my tongue between them. Emily jerked slightly, but I held her and deepened the kiss, exploring her mouth, holding myself back, not wanting to rush her. She relaxed with a tiny sigh and tentatively brought her hand up to my neck.

My being was flooded with the poignancy of this connection. I had known, deep inside, that I wanted her, but I hadn't known just how much till this moment. I added more pressure to the kiss and was rewarded by her response: she slid her arm around my neck and our bodies pressed together.

Hesitantly, lightly, I placed my hand on her breast; a moment, then she put her hand on top of mine and pressed. Small, firm, high, it just filled my hand. I squeezed, my heart almost stopping at my own daring. She made a little whimper - a sound of surrender - in the back of her throat.

I parted from my love just enough to scramble back onto the bed and to pull her up with me. We lay full length, hip to hip and breast to breast, staring into each other's eyes for a long moment. My fingers were cold as ice as I fumbled to unbutton her shirt.

"What are we doing, Lee Lee?" Emily whispered, using my old nick name, a sign of intimacy.

"I don't know," I admitted. "I-I just have to, Emily."

"B-but, what about Sam?"

"Hush, let's not think about Sam, he doesn't belong here. This… this is just us."

I got the last button undone and parted her shirt. Emily's body was familiar to me: years of friendship had done away with any barriers of modesty we might have had. Overnights and swimming, getting ready together for dates; we had shared clothes and pinned broken bra straps for each other.

None of that had prepared me for surge of sensation from running my hands over her satin smooth skin.

Or for the triumph of hearing her exclamation of desire as she crushed her mouth to mine, her tongue searching against my lips.

I pushed her shirt off her shoulders, drawing it off her arms. I felt Em's hands tug at my t-shirt and I squirmed and pulled till it was over my head and gone. Another pause, our eyes locked, and then the bras followed.

With a hoarse sigh, I laid my face into the soft sweetness of Emily's breasts and breathed in deeply, letting the scent of her fill my head. Intoxicating. With my mouth and hands, I roamed and explored. Her nibs were erect and beckoning to me. As I sucked a nipple between my lips, swirling with my tongue, she gave a little cry that sent my mind, and body, soaring with delight.

Her hands wove themselves in my hair, gripping and tugging. She pulled my face up to hers and kissed me hungrily, the way I had been kissing her. My hands strayed to the waist of her jeans; I hesitated, wanting permission to continue.

"Lee Lee, I've never…I don't know…" she faltered.

"Neither have I." I confessed. "We'll just… work it out together." Emily wasn't a virgin any more than I was, in the traditional sense. In this way we were both virgins.

It might be easier if I went first. I stood up off the bed and dropped my jeans and panties, kicking them aside. I waited, letting her look at my nakedness. Then I reached down and began removing the rest of her clothing. She raised her behind and shimmied out of the jeans, then reached up her arms to me, pulling me into a tight embrace.

I rejoiced in the feel of her in my arms, our hearts pounding together, our passion mounting. Hands gripping tighter, kisses taking on bruising force, legs tangling. I thrust my thigh between hers, pressing up to her cleft; I could feel her silky wetness on my skin. I filled my hand with her mound and then slid my fingers between her lips.

A sigh and a shiver led me on. All that I knew of these things was what _I_ liked, how Sam touched me, how I touched myself.

Drifting my lips down her neck, I explored her collarbone and brushed down the space between her breasts. There I paused to worship her beauty, kissing, suckling, licking. Her soft moans and quivers guided me, her hands tightening on me and exploring me on their own account were my reward.

I ghosted my face farther down and felt her start and tremble as I touched the tender flesh below her navel; that was worth another visit – with the same result. I paused between her legs, uncertain, but knowing what I wanted.

Softly, I glided the tip of my nose along the inside of her thigh, up, up… with a smothered gasp I pressed my face to the mass of softly curling hair there and parted the way. Her folds were as delicate and tender as flower petals, her taste a combination of freshly turned earth and the salt of the tide pools under the summer sun, plus something that was only _Emily_.

A moan sounded from my own throat as I flicked my tongue over her knot and felt her jerk in response. In all my daydreams of her I had never allowed myself to think that _this_ might be possible. With mouth and hands I pursued those responses that told me I was affecting her as I hoped.

I was almost weeping from the brilliant joy of touching the girl I loved this way.

She stiffened for a moment as I slid a finger, then two, inside her, but she immediately gave way to the sensations I was lavishing on her. My own arousal was beyond my wildest imaginings as she arched her split into my mouth and cried out her ecstasy, her walls convulsing around my fingers.

I moved to take her in my arms, to cradle her head in my breasts as her breathing slowed and the pounding of her heart quieted. Emily turned up her face to me and kissed me, sighing her satisfaction into my open mouth.

"I can taste me on your lips!" she murmured, wonderingly. One hand stole tentatively down my body to rest lightly between my legs, fingers stroking and plaiting themselves in the crisp hairs there.

"Leah, I don't know…I -" her voice trailed away, diffident and humble.

"Show me something _you_ like, Emily." I whispered tenderly, any touch she could give me was beyond value.

She kissed me again, intently and searchingly. With agonizing slowness, she moved her lips down my neck. With the tip of her tongue, she drew a line that burned me with the pleasure of it from the hollow of my throat, crisscrossing my chest, drawing circles around my breasts, tickling the curve of my underarm.

"Aaaaahhhaaa," sounded from somewhere deep inside me as she fastened her mouth to my breast, sucking me avidly, her fingers probing my cleft. In my sensitivity and desire it was as though a current of electricity passed between the two points, stealing the breath from my lungs in its intensity.

"A little… a little more -" a whimper fell from my lips. Emily knew exactly what I wanted and moved her fingers on my clit a little harder, a little faster and then, and then… I was claimed by a rising tide of searing, golden heat that swept me out to sea.

Sighs and whispers, muffled exclamations, an occasional giggle; the soft sounds filled my bedroom as the twilight deepened. At last, our passion spent, I curled around her, one hand clasped to her breast, my face buried in her fragrant hair.

"I love you," I breathed as we drifted off to sleep.

………

It was dark when I woke. Emily was gone.

A bit disappointing, but understandable, I thought: it was a lot to process. I had had longer to deal with the idea of being together. Hugging myself with the happiness of my love for her, I allowed my mind to flow to the future.

There would be difficulties, sure, weren't there always for star-crossed lovers? We might even have to leave La Push; no, we definitely would. The thought made me gulp - no matter, if we had each other anything was possible.

Resolutely, I banished the mental pictures of an outraged Sam; of my father, his expression shocked and sorrowful; of Seth, a forlorn look in his eyes, waving good-bye as I drove away from my old life, Emily beside me. Like a scene from a movie.

………

Life isn't like the movies.

Over the next few days, I didn't see Emily, barely spoke with her on the phone. Not once in the past eleven years had we gone more than a couple of days without getting together.

Never before had I fully realized the meaning of the term 'broken heart'. The agony raged inside me like a wolf - scratching and tearing and biting. The pain was so intense that I could barely stand upright at times.

To make matters worse, Sam continued his mystery man act, he was scarcely around and uncommunicative when he was. He couldn't have comforted me, really, just as I couldn't have told him my trouble. But he was familiar; he had always been there, the anchor of my life.

If I didn't have Emily and I didn't have Sam…. My mind stopped at that, I couldn't let myself even imagine a world so bereft.

I had been filling her voicemail box as fast as she could erase it.

"Please, Emily, don't make me into some kind of stalker here, we need to talk. _Please_?" I couldn't help the break in my voice on that last word.

My woe must have been plain, for she called back and reluctantly agreed to see me at the house. I promised that we would speak on the front porch, in full sight of half the village.

When she arrived, looking even more beautiful than I remembered, I was tongue-tied, all the speeches I had so urgently rehearsed in my mind, gone.

She spoke, "I owe you an apology, Leah."

I tried to interrupt, but she shook her head, continuing, "I shouldn't have allowed what happened to – to _happen_. I – you… you want something I can't give you." She swallowed hard.

"No!" I protested, "Don't make up your mind so fast, please. We… you liked it the other day, Emily." My words trickled out in a pleading whisper. "It's _us_…."

I stretched out a hand to her; she stepped back, out of reach.

"Putting me, um, _that_ aside, Leah, what about Sam?" she said soberly, sadly.

"Somebody mention my name?"

I felt like choking in frustration as Sam strolled around the side of the house; he must have parked on the street, I hadn't heard the truck pull up. Tall, handsome, smiling quizzically at the sound of his name in our conversation, he glanced around and was plainly taken aback at our anguished expressions.

That is, he looked at me for a moment in concern, then turned his eyes to Emily and froze. He stared at her as if he had not seen almost daily for years, as if struck by an unseen force.

It was as though I was watching the time-lapse footage of a skyscraper under construction. As fast as my mind could absorb, connections as strong and solid as steel girders were erected and forged together. A framework that was complex and immoveable, and exclusive.

Every possible future I could foresee was gone in the tenth of a second it took for Sam to meet Emily's eyes.

A blush swept over Emily's face and quickly faded away, leaving her normally russet skin ashen. She shook her head in protest, looking from my erstwhile lover to me, aghast.

"No-o, no! You're for Leah!" She whispered. But all three of us could see, somehow, what had happened and knew its inevitability.

Sam took a pace forward, toward _her_, as if pulled by an invisible string.

The whole village must have heard my scream of denial. I don't remember much of what happened then. I guess somebody called my dad. I do recall that he picked me up from where I lay on the porch, my face in my hands and got me upstairs to my room.

He sat beside me, telling me fairy tales or some such crap, stories that sounded like the old legends of our tribe, of wolves who turn into men and mystic bonds and the like. Stuff that might have soothed a four year old; I couldn't understand why he was bothering me with such things when it was the world was ending.

Dad wasn't with us too much longer. It was some weeks after his death that I finally understood what he had been telling me that awful day.

At times I felt that my body – my strong, athletic body in which I had always had a secret pride – was too fragile a vessel to hold the wilderness of grief and loss and fury inside me. I felt as though I would explode.

One day I did.

It was a different sort of challenge now, to keep my truth to myself, but one in which I took some grim pleasure. I filled my mind with thoughts of anger and resentment against Sam, finding a certain perverse pleasure in tormenting the whole lot of them, stupid boys!

We were never friends again, Emily and me.

I would have made it be enough for me, friendship, if she had permitted it, but she couldn't give me even that. Just a flimsy veneer of the camaraderie we had had before, that fooled no one. I let everyone think it was me, that I was too bitter over her taking my man to be more than civil.

Keeping the secret to that extent was something I could do for her, and for Sam.

………

Smiling blandly - more practice, more pain – I passed around the little pouches of birdseed to hurl at the bridal pair as they made their laughing exit to the waiting limo.

I had ducked from the bouquet that Emily had tried to toss my way. Let everybody think what they liked, that I was still mourning the loss of Sam.

I felt a hand slip into mine as I stood apart from the cheering, waving crowd: Seth, of course.

"I love you, I love you." My lips moved soundlessly as I watched the car disappear down the road.

Let them think what they liked.

………

A/N: Puts a rather different light on Leah's bitterness, doesn't it?

A big thanks to Sassenach Wench for her uber beta skills & encouragement!!

Please leave a review and let me know what you think of this version of the secondary love triangle!!


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